Method and apparatus for connecting consumers with one or more product or service providers

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus that for matching consumers with product or service providers is disclosed. The method may include establishing one or more profiles from one or more product or service providers, establishing one or more profiles from one or more consumers, receiving a consumer&#39;s subject matter request, matching the consumer with one or more products or service providers based on at least one of the consumer&#39;s profile and subject matter request, and providing the consumer&#39;s contact information to the matched one or more products or service providers.

PRIORITY INFORMATION

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/053,869, filed on Mar. 22, 2011, which claims priority from U.S.Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/381,235, filed on Sep. 9, 2010,which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No.61/316,695, filed on Mar. 23, 2010, the contents of which areincorporated herein in their entireties.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSED EMBODIMENTS

1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments

The disclosed embodiments relate to generating a system and interfacefor connecting a product or service provider and a consumer in searchof, or in need of such product or service.

2. Introduction

Coventional Information sites (e.g, websites, software applications,computing devices, etc.) exist for individuals and consumers to offergoods and services for sale at their standard or discounted price or ata price determined using an auction or variable pricing system. However,often consumers spend time seeking a service provider or entity to buygoods or obtain services by searching on-line or using a telephonedirectory. In this manner, consumers often have to spend considerabletime and effort to contact several service providers via informationsites or telephone to obtain an acceptable price and availability fromthe goods or service providers. They also are forced to search usingInternet search engines or generic websites that offer multiple types ofproducts with the hope that a product or service provider who carriesthe product they are looking for will show up in a search result, underthe search terms they are looking for, and that the product or serviceprovider presented will have the product at the price they are willingto pay, and be in a relevant geographic areas.

Additionally Service Providers and product or service providers spendtime and resources in an effort to attract consumers for their productsand services via advertising. Current advertising methods such astelevision, radio, and conventional online advertising, while effectivein presenting information to large groups of potential buyers based ontraditional demographic criteria, such as general geograhic location,and in the case of internet search engines, particular topics ofinterest indicated by the search, they still are not efficient. Thesemethods require the buyer of a product or service provider's products tobe exposed to the specific advertising for which that product or serviceprovider has paid. In the scenario of internet advertising, a product orservice provider's potential consumer perform a search for a term orgroup of terms that will return that product or service provider as partof a paid or unpaid search result on an internet search engine, or visita particular website displaying advertising from that product or serviceprovider.

In the event that a product or service provider does chose to develop anonline advertising campaign, the product or service provider must nowspend resources to manage that campaign, and entice viewers to visittheir website through the use of limited advertising text, hyperlinksand advertising banners. If the consumer does select the product orservice provider's advertisement it is then up to the product or serviceprovider's website to convert the passive searcher into a consumer witheffective online lead generation (which differs in effectiveness byindustry and from product or service provider-to-product or serviceprovider). Additionally not all current methods of online advertisingaccount for “window shoppers,” or users who click on the wrong link,both of which cost the advertiser money. As most product or serviceproviders do not specialize in web design, the product or serviceprovider's conversion rate becomes a secondary problem once a potentialconsumer has selected the product or service provider's website. A highconversion rate can reduce the cost per acquisition while a lowconversion rate will increase the cost per acquisition.

Ultimately, regardless of the a product or service provider's ability tomaintain or afford conventional methods of advertising for purposes ofconsumer acquisition, that advertising is expensive and does not allowthe product or service provider to exactly target or reach theirpreferred clients. Moreover, these conventional methods rely on theconsumer being exposed to that product or service provider and selectingto work with or purchase from that particular product or serviceprovider which can be cost prohibitive for most small to medium productor service providers.

The less traditional or common place method of client acquisition isthrough purchasing of Leads. Leads are generally considered: consumercontact information and limited information about their interest orneeds, which have been generated by some source (such as a survey,contact form, or an account created when purchasing some other service).This method, while allowing for direct access to consumers does notnecessarily ensure that the consumer: a) is expecting to be contacted bya particular product or service provider, b) is interested in a productor service providers specific product(s) or industry, c) is a clientthat matches a particular product or service provider's specificcriteria, or d) has not been contacted by numerous other product orservice providers who acquired their contact information, therebydevaluing any contact by a particular product or service provider.Conversely, from the consumer's perspective, this method relies on allparties who have access to their contact information to 1) keep itsecure, 2) ensure their privacy is maintained, 3) provide theirinformation to only the people they desire, and 4) only share theirinformation with persons or entities they specifically authorize. Theseconventional methods also require consumers, if they are interested inmultiple products, to produce multiple leads thereby reducing anycurrent practical implementation to little more than online versions of“Classified Wanted Ads”. Additionally, once a consumer has submittedtheir information, they do not necessarily have any knowledge of by whomit is received.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSED EMBODIMENTS

A method and apparatus that for matching consumers with product orservice providers is disclosed. The method may include establishing oneor more profiles from one or more product or service providers,establishing one or more profiles from one or more consumers, receivinga consumer's subject matter request, matching the consumer with one ormore products or service providers based on at least one of theconsumer's profile and subject matter request, and providing theconsumer's contact information to the matched one or more products orservice providers.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the disclosed embodiments can be obtained, amore particular description of the disclosed embodiments brieflydescribed above will be rendered by reference to specific embodimentsthereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understandingthat these drawings depict only typical disclosed embodiments and arenot therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, thedisclosed embodiments will be described and explained with additionalspecificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings inwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary diagram of a consumer/product or serviceprovider matching environment in accordance with a possible embodimentof the disclosure;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary consumer/product orservice provider matching server in accordance with a possibleembodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary consumer/product or service providermatching process in accordance with a possible embodiment of thedisclosure;

FIG. 4 is a screen capture of an exemplary set of results that occurwhen a real estate-based system performs scoring on a number of consumerprofiles in accordance with a possible embodiment of the disclosure; and

FIG. 5 is a screen capture of an exemplary interface provided by a realestate-based system to enable real estate professionals (e.g., agentsand mortgage brokers) to see consumers that are actively looking forreal estate or mortgages in a particular region in accordance with apossible embodiment of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSED EMBODIMENTS

Additional features and advantages of the disclosed embodiments will beset forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obviousfrom the description, or may be learned by practice of the disclosedembodiments. The features and advantages of the disclosed embodimentsmay be realized and obtained by means of the instruments andcombinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These andother features of the disclosed embodiments will become more fullyapparent from the following description and appended claims, or may belearned by the practice of the disclosed embodiments as set forthherein.

Various embodiments of the disclosed embodiments are discussed in detailbelow. While specific implementations are discussed, it should beunderstood that this is done for illustration purposes only. A personskilled in the relevant art will recognize that other components andconfigurations may be used without parting from the spirit and scope ofthe disclosed embodiments.

The disclosed embodiments may comprise a variety of embodiments, such asa method and apparatus and other embodiments that relate to the basicconcepts of the disclosed embodiments.

This disclosed embodiments may concern an apparatus and method forproviding product or service providers with a targeted and relevant listof potential consumers, and enabling product or service providers andconsumers to connect directly. More particularly, the disclosedembodiments may relate to a “Pay for Profile” method of consumertargeting and acquisition which reverses the traditional process andallows the consumer to be specific with their desired product or servicecriteria and therefore the product or service provider can more closelymatch their offers to the desires of the consumer. Product or serviceproviders may pay for access to a consumers' profile that meets theircriteria and may not pay for consumers that do not meet their criteriaor that have selected the product or service provider accidently whileperforming a search.

“Pay-for-profile” may apply market principles to advertising on theInternet. Conventional Internet applications are passive and do notprovide a platform for a product or service provider to take a proactiveapproach. Conventional internet applications also do not allow consumersto post profiles in order to have product or service providers offertheir products or services directly to them in a controlled format.Pay-for-Profile may enable product or service providers to moreaccurately target internet users that meet their criteria and focusresources on their best possible consumer. Furthermore, a competitiveconsumer selection process may be based on a cost per acquisition, priceper click, consumer price point, number of previous clicks, time postedand area of interest to helps ensure that the pricing structure reflectsthe market and is accessible to product or service providers regardlessof their websites efficiency or the product or service provider'sparticular marketing budget.

Combining consumer generated profiles and lead purchasing is notcommonplace. There is a need to provide a method and apparatus which cancombine consumer generated profiles and lead purchasing through one'sown website or third party website, combined with a method and apparatusto charge the product or service provider per access of the profilewhile also allowing for the possibility of consumer interaction with theprofile and maintaining of consumer privacy.

The proposed disclosed system and method may also concern gatheringinformation concerning products and/or services needed from a consumer,posting that information (which may collectively be considered aprofile, lead, or contact information) using a public or member-basedpresentation forum (e.g., a website, application page, intranet, etc.),and then providing commercial entities (or other consumers) the abilityto access all or portions of the profile: to offer their goods and/orservices through the intermediary presenter (e.g. the website,application page, intranet, etc.), to review data for consumer researchpurposes, and to purchase contact information for the purpose of resale.

The Consumer Profiles

Consumer profiles may be created and updated automatically or by theconsumer through an interaction with an application or website. Profilesmay not be limited to contact information of a single individual orentity.

The profile could contain both default or automatically generated valuesfor any particular information contained in the profile. The profile maycontain multiple sub-profiles within it. Each sub-profile may containinformation unique to that sub-profile or duplicate informationinherited from other profiles, sub-profiles, and parent profile. Aprofile may contain any information relevant to a consumer or apotential product or service provider. Examples of information containedin the profile may be: contact information of the consumer; geographicinformation relevant to the consumer; parameters regarding product orservice price features brands, color, manufacture, safety ratings, andconsumer ratings; the general description of a desired product; how manytimes a profile may be accesses, and particular product or serviceproviders or distributors that may or may not be authorized to contactthis consumer. Profiles may also contain the source of the profile,system information about the consumer, such as the consumer's operatingsystem (OS) or internet protocol (IP) address, history of websitesvisited, and any other information that maybe collected automaticallyduring creation of the profile.

Profiles may also be associated with particular channels which couldinclude industries, particular categories of products, or manufactures.

Consumer Participation in the System:

Consumer may update all or part of the information in a profile.Examples of information consumers may change within a profile are:narrowing or expanding of product criteria, general description,channels with which to associate their profiles, number of clicks theirprofile may receive, number of views their profile or portion of aprofile may receive, where and when and to whom the profile ispresented, as well as any related privacy setting such as name orcontact information available to product or service provider.

The consumer may pay, be paid, receive discounts, points, coupons or anyother monitory or non-monitory incentive for creating or interactingwith a profile. Or the service may be free to the consumer and they mayreceive no benefit for creating a profile.

The consumers who are associated with profiles may also be compensatedin the form of a discount when they purchase a product or servicethrough a particular retailer. This type of special discount may alsoleverage the collective buying power of groups. Either user-created ordetermined-by the respective information site, consumers who are allinterested in the same product could all receive select discounts fromproduct or service providers who offer incentives based on the number ofpeople interested in buying at that time.

Product or Service Provider Accounts in the System:

Product or service providers may not be exclusively limited toindividuals or entities selling products, and could include any entity,individual, program code, that accesses a profile.

The product or service provider may pay, be paid, participate as amember of a collective, or the service may be free to the product orservice provider. Membership may be required or the service may be afree or open source platform that allows product or service providers orusers access to all or some of the profiles.

The product or service providers may create an account in the system;however an account may not be required. Product or service providers mayaccess and use their account to select profiles to view based on: searchterms that are relevant to the products and services offered by theproduct or service provider, a particular budget they have establishedfor selecting profiles, or other criteria unrelated to the products theyoffer but related to purchasers of their products, such as gender.

In would be assumed that the less time that passes between when aconsumers requests a product or service, and when the product or serviceprovider accesses the profile of that consumer to offer them products,the greater the chances of doing business with that consumer. For thisreason the product or service provider may also be able to setup methodsfor automatically accessing profiles that meet a particular set ofcriteria, or could integrate accessing of profiles with any otherconsumer targeting systems already in use by a product or serviceprovider such as auto responder emails.

Product or service providers may also set up “daily budgets” with filtercriteria similar to a CPC campaign budget where filters are set and allprofiles are automatically accessed or available to be select that meettheir product or service provider's criteria, until the budget isexhausted, for example.

Product or service provider profiles may also store previously accessedconsumer profiles for reference, tracking or client management purposes.This could also be used to ensure product or service providers are notcharged for accessing the same profile over again unless it was updated.

Product or Service Provider Access of Profiles:

Product or service providers may access profiles through any number ofinterfaces or platforms such as website, computer applications, ormobile devices, software application, RSS feed, or any program codedesigned to retrieve profiles or portions of information included withina profile.

Upon access of a profile a product or service provider may be billed orcharged. Upon access of the profile: the product or service provider maybe provided with, or provided a method to access, the available portionof the accessed profile based on the platform through which it wasaccessed or other criteria determined by the system, and informationinside the profile.

Information provided from the profile to a product or service providermay be provided immediately or could be stored in (or associated with)the Product or service provider's Account for later retrieval or othercross reference proposes.

The product or service provider's selection of a profile may result inan access request being sent to the system for the consumer's profile,and a response by the system transmitting the consumers profileinformation to the product or service provider.

The product or service provider may only be charged when the consumer isselected by the product or service provider either through a manualselection process, an automated selection process with the product orservice providers preset criteria, an automated process based oncriteria set by the system, or any combination of methods or means bywhich the system is able to match a consumer profile with a product orservice provider.

Profile Valuation:

One possible method of monetizing this system may be by implementing aPay per Click (PPC) system. However, rather than costing the advertisersome amount of money every time a person (e.g., the person seeking goodsand/or services in this case, otherwise known as the “consumer”) clickson a promotional link, the person offering to provide the goods and/orservices (a “professional”) may be charged per-profile accessed.

One possible method for determining amount of money charged to productor service providers per-profile accessed may be assigning a value toeach profile based on general or specific criteria. Examples that coulddetermine or be combined to determine criteria could be: number previousclicks or times the profile or portion of the profile was accessed,geographic location of the consumer, geographic location of the consumerrelative to the product or service provider, date of the consumer'srequest, last time the profile was updated, specific product or serviceproviders that have previously accessed the profile relative to thecurrent product or service provider, exclusive vs. non-exclusive, theparticular product or service provider accessing the profile, criteriaset by the system, criteria set by the user. Furthermore, valuation maybe influenced by profiles previously contacted by the product or serviceprovider, or the proportional benefit the product or service providercould receive based on the benefit the product or service provider wouldsee from a transaction with this consumer.

This system may also be developed to use a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA),Period Based Subscription, Auction, Fixed Fee, Commodity Market, or anyother model (or combination of models) suitable for accountability andrevenue generation:

Searching Profiles/Determining Profiles to be Presented

Profiles may be searched and accessed via multiple platforms thatinterface with the system. Searches may be performed based on any numberof criteria or methods. Searches may not be limited to manual input ofcriteria by a user. Searches may be preformed automatically based onmanual input of criteria by a user, program code, previously definedcriteria of a user, or the platform in which they are displayed prior toaccess (such as within a list of results from an internet searchengine).

One possible disclosed embodiment may access the system via a website,search available profiles, and display resulting matching profiles basedon a search term selected by a product or service provider. Furtherembodiments may include returning profiles based on:

-   -   A search term included as part of an internet search engine        query.    -   Search criteria that only show profiles where the consumer has        agreed to allow their information to be provided freely by the        product or service provider, or other related privacy or        accessibility setting.    -   Criteria within the profile such as: the geographic location of        the user, or geographic relevance to product or service        provider.    -   Criteria within the profile such as: amount of information,        quality of information, when the information was providing, and        relevance of information provided.    -   Geographic information associated with the profile such as:        geographic areas of interest to the consumer, the geographic        areas of interest to the product or service provider, current        location of a consumer associated with a profile; with        geographic information based on information stored in the        profile or from information associated with a profile based on        GPS data or other method of determining geographic information        such as IP address.

Search results may be listed and arranged in order of relevance, amountconsumer is willing to pay, amount and quality of information provided,and time request was made, geographic relevance and search termrelevance with the search listing corresponding to the higher of any oneor a combination of these variables. For example, page ranking can beperformed on a system-wide basis or on a product or serviceprovider-specified basis. One exemplary page ranking technique for areal estate system can utilize the following weighting such that theresults are then sorted by final score (highest to lowest).

TABLE I Score Criteria Sub-criteria Changes Actions Name First name orlast name <3 letters −5 pts mark invalid First or last name is blank −5pts mark invalid first or last name includes invalid −3 pts charactersfirst or last name appears to be test −100 pts mark invalid data Addressstreet address is blank −1 pt address appears to be invalid −1 pt stateis blank −1 pt city is blank −1 pt zip code is blank or invalid −1 ptcity doesn't match state −1 pt zip doesn't match state −1 pt Email emailis blank −1 pt email does not match email address −1 pt formats emailaddress appears to be test data −100 pts mark invalid Phone phone #1 isblank −1 pt number phone #2 is blank −1 pt phone #1 appears to haveinvalid −5 pts format phone #2 appears to have invalid −5 pts formatphone #1 appears to be test data −100 pts mark invalid phone #2 appearsto be test data −100 pts mark invalid Cash  40k+ +5 pts on hand $20k-$40k +3 pts  $5k-$20k +2 pts  <$5k +1 pt $0 or blank 0 pts Loan$500k +7 pts Amount $300k-$500k +6 pts $200k-$300k +5 pts $150k-$200k +4pts $100k-$150k +3 pts  $75k-$100k +2 pts   $1-$75k +1 pt blank or $0 0pts Credit excellent +5 pts history good +4 pts fair +2 pts poor +1 ptblank or bad +0 pts

While the above ranking system utilizes a number of disclosed factorsand weights to create a result score, those of skill in the relevant artwill understand that other weights and factors can be used instead. Forexample, whether a property is to be bought as a first home or aninvestment property can be used. Additionally, points can be assigned(added or subtracted) on other financial factors as well, such as theconsumer's income level, the price the consumer has indicated they arewilling to pay for such products or services, any discount that theconsumer is requesting on the product/service, and/or the value of theparticular item or service the consumer has indicated an interest in.

Similarly, geographic information may also cause an increase or decreasein score. For example, if a consumer is looking for a property in aparticular area of interest (e.g., an area close to the product orservice provider, an area near the area in which the consumer currentlyresides or an area known to have high sales) a score may be increased,but a score could be decreased if the area of interest for the consumeris outside of where the product or service provider is licensed toprovide services. Geographic areas of interest to the consumer and thegeographic areas of interest to the product or service provider can bothbe used (together or individually) and can be specified using a numberof techniques such as, but not limited to zip codes, GPS, IP address,points of interest and additional means.

Additionally, “meta” data maintained by the system about a consumer mayalso be used in page ranking. For example, a first user that has updatedhis/her profile more recently than a second user (who otherwise has thesame characteristics as the first user) may be significantly morevaluable to a product or service provider than the second user as thesecond user may not be an active consumer. Similarly, the number oftimes that a consumer updates his/her profile can be used as part ofpage ranking as well. The system can likewise track (and use in pagerank) the number of times that a consumer has purchased after beingcontacted, the number of times that the consumer has bought similargoods, the average price of purchases by the consumer, and/or the numberof purchases per time interval by the consumer.

Additionally, “meta” data maintained by the system about the product orservice provider may also be used in page ranking. For example, thenumber of times that the product or service provider selected similarprofiles and/or the amount of time that the product or service providerpreviously spent reviewing similar consumer profiles may be used toaffect page ranking.

Yet additional features that can be utilized in page ranking caninclude, but are not limited to:

-   1. Number of times the search result or similar search results have    been selected (by the product or service provider or other product    or service providers).-   2. Length of time the search result has been posted.-   3. Length of time similar search results remained posted.-   4. Relevance to search term, if provided.-   5. The length of time the search result or similar result was not    selected.-   6. Consumer provided direct input.-   7. Inferred information collected from other means other than those    directly provided by the consumer-   8. The particular subject matter.

The above discussion has focused on the use of universal, static rankingwhere all service providers receive the same search results if theysearch on the same criteria. However, it is also possible to utilize theabove system in the context of an auction or by using bid pricing. Forexample, if a first service provider indicates that it will pay $1 perlead, then the first service provider may receive a different (andbetter) set of search results than a second service provider thatindicates that it is only willing to pay $0.50 per lead. In such a case,the second service provider may get “delayed leads” where the lead isonly placed on the second service provider's results after the lead isolder than a particular time period (e.g., half an hour, hour, day orweek). Alternatively, the second service provider may get lower scoringleads than the first service provider that has offered to pay more perlead.

The cost per lead also need not be static. As the pool of leads beginsto shrink, the cost of each lead may be increased. Similarly, as thepool of leads increases, the cost per lead may decrease in order to havemore service providers matched to consumers. The cost per lead may alsobe affected by “volume discounts” such that a service provider that haspurchased a threshold number of leads begins to get a discount on futurepurchases for a particular period of time. Additionally, price orposition may be influenced by specificity of data.

Profile may be included and be listed in combination with “organicsearch” and “advertising” results on an existing web platform and orsearch engine.

Additionally, the most preferred iteration of the invention may use theconsumers' ideal price point or price range, most recent time of requestand geographic area as the most heavily weighted variables in theranking of results. These variables may be identified and presented aspart of the profile prior to the product or service provider selectingand accessing the consumer's profile.

System as Intermediary for Communication

The system of the disclosed embodiments may also act as an intermediaryfor all or some of the communication of information between theconsumers who create profiles and product or service providers whoaccess the profiles. This may include correspondence between the partiesor the exchange of funds.

The system of the disclosed embodiments may allow consumers to searchfor products, and speak with knowledgeable professionals about what theyare looking for without divulging personal information that may be soldor passed on to other entities without their direct knowledge.

The system may become the monetary, points, or other exchanger ofpayment collections or disbursement.

The product or service provider may contact the consumer via a protectedemail, protected phone, traditional email, text message, telephone, postmail and/or whichever means of communications the consumer (or thesystem) has indicated or determined to be of benefit to the product orservice provider. In addition, the contact with the consumer may be inthe form of a “posting” to a password protected message board or website (e.g. Facebook or LinkedIn). For example, a protected email can bea temporary email address at the intermediary system (e.g., x13kdsf35@systemsdomainname.domainextension) which the system then forwardsto a customer's real email address(MeganMatthew@customersdomainname.domainextension), where“domainextension” typically is .com, .edu, etc. Similarly, a protectedphone number is a phone number of the system that the product or serviceprovider calls and then the system bridges the call to the customer'sreal phone number. A system may have multiple phone numbers that itassociates with certain leads for a period of time, or the system mayhave one or more central numbers that once called use PINs and/or systemassigned customer numbers that identify which of the leads the productor service provider wishes to contact. Because the system acts as anintermediary, the number of contacts to a potential customer can belimited by the system (e.g., three contacts can be made before thesystem stops forwarding email or calls). In one embodiment, the systemcan contact the customer to determine if the customer wishes toauthorize an additional number of contacts from the product or serviceprovider such that the product or service provider can continue to sendthe customer information and/or offers.

In addition to a traditional revenue model where the intermediaryfacilitating the communication between the two parties collects andretains the revenue, the intermediary site may also perform a revenuesplit with the consumer using the service. This process may be based ona direct per transaction method (based on typical affiliate programs),or on a dividend method where each member is paid some portion of globalpayout. This payout may also be in the form of credit or points whichcould be exchanged for goods, services, or cash. These payouts may alsobe in the form of “gift cards”, for example.

The System

The system for collecting, organizing, storing, and returning lists ofprofiles to be accessed or delivering information stored with in aprofile to a product or service provider when accessed may be stored ona computer on a network, and may be accessed by multiple informationsites.

In one possible disclosed embodiment, the system may allow for multipledevices and systems all containing their own methods (collectivelyplatforms) to connect with the system. These platforms would be able todisplay, submit, create, modify, extract, and monetize profiles withinor somehow associated with the system.

Examples of platforms that may access the system include a websiterelated to a particular subject matter, internet search engines,software applications, and mobile devices. The combination of organicsearch results from an internet search engine combined with a list ofconsumer profiles may be offered as an option on a search engine orwebsite, if that search engine or website is able to determine if theuser is performing a search as a product or service provider or aconsumer with an account on the system.

These platforms may access the system via Really Simple Syndication(RSS) feeds, software Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), customcode connected to the system and designed to present information on awebsite (such as a Widget), or some other code designed to allow otherplatforms to interface with the system.

The system may determine how each profile is relevant to a searchrequest based on search criteria, program code with thin the system,valuation of the profile, number of search terms, a geographic area, andamount product or service provider is willing to pay for access to allof part of the information contained in the profile, informationcontained within a profile or group of profiles, other criteriadetermined by the system, platform accessing the system, or anycombination.

The system may, based on user interaction or use of program code, addadditional information to a consumer profile based on availableinformation from other data source or providers to further enhance thevalue of the profile to a product or service provider or further refinea consumers request for a particular product. This may include listingdetails about previous purchases made or services requested by thatconsumer, or other product or service providers that this consumerfrequents.

Fraud, Privacy, and Spam Protection

The system may employ reasonable measures for fraud protection andabuse. The system may maintain consumer's information, and act as anintermediary for all communications between consumer and product orservice provider. Conversely, accounts created by consumers may requiresome form of verification to ensure that are not charged for falseinformation provided by a consumer, or unauthorized or accidentallyaccess of profiles by their account. Additionally, the implementation ofPPC to access/contact the product or service buyers (consumers) wouldpotentially reduce “spam”, and increase the value of the intermediaryservice to both the consumer and the professional. The consumer canblock or unblock a particular product or service provider so that theconsumer is not bothered by product or service providers they do notwant to do business with and this would also keep the product or serviceprovider from selecting the same consumer that does not want to bebothered with unwelcome solicitations.

EXAMPLE #1

An example of this process may be found in the real estate professionwhere a consumer's profile has been added to a database which indicatesthat the consumer is searching for a $500,000 home with 4 bedrooms and 3baths in Scottsdale, Ariz. The consumer request was made at 9:00 amMonday morning.

A loan officer who desires to generate business in that price rangeperforms a search on an internet search engine for consumers who arelooking in the $500,000 price range and would be presented with theconsumer's profile to be accessed.

A different loan officer who desires to generate business in the city ofScottsdale, Ariz. performs a search on a real estate website forconsumers who are searching for homes in the city of Scottsdale. Thatloan officer is presented with the same consumer's profile.

A third loan officer who desires to generate business in the city ofTempe, Ariz. and desires consumer's in Tempe, Ariz. performs a search inon his mobile devise and is offered the same consumer from Scottsdaleprofile—because the system determined the target city of the search isrelatively close to the one listed in the profile, or because they areboth within Maricopa county, or because it was determined that consumerswho shop in Scottsdale are likely to desirable consumers for loanofficers in Tempe. There are many other cross over data points includingtime of request, geographically and relevance, only a few of which werediscussed here in this example.

EXAMPLE #2

A further example of this process in the real estate profession may beillustrated where a website may exist that may ask members to signup foran account and provide Non-Personal Information, such as details aboutthe type of house they are looking for (e.g., bed bath count, type ofhouse, location, price range), and personal information such as contactinformation (e.g., name, email address, phone number), etc. Thenon-personal information, such as the details about the type of housethey are looking for, may then be posted in a list with other members onthe website. Real estate agents who have also signed up as professionalmembers of the site may then select one of the members from the list andinitiate contact through the site. The member may receive a request fromthe professional member, at which time they would be able to see all thedetails about the person initiating the request, and can then accept,reject, or report the contact as “spam”. If a request is accepted, themember may then discuss further details about the property with theprofessional member, and if they choose, directly communicate anypersonal contact information.

EXAMPLE #3

A further example of this process can be illustrated with an example ofa consumer searching for a designer handbag. The consumer is interestedin a particular handbag from a particular manufacture, and creates aprofile with criteria describing the desired bag, and excludes theprofile from being seen or accessed by any product or service providerthat doesn't offer handbags from that specific manufacturer.

A product or service provider who specializes in handbags from thatparticular manufacturer may contact the first consumer, and sell them ahandbag. After the sale, the consumer may remove their profile as theirneeds were met. The product or service provider may have the option tokeep her information in a database in order to send consumer informationto the consumer as new handbags from that same manufacturer becomeavailable, in an attempt to secure a future sale.

In the same scenario, if a second consumer who is interested in alldesigner handbags if they are offered at a reasonable price, may createa profile describing the desire for “all designer handbags a reasonableprice”, but she may limit the number of contact to 10 per week, forexample.

The same product or service provider who contacted the first consumermay also access this profile. Additionally, several other product orservice providers' may select the profile, and each may have the optionto present their best deal (e.g., no shipping costs, reduced price andso forth). In this case the consumer may leave her profile active as sheis willing to buy at least one designer bag per month, so long as sheperceives the price to be a bargain, for example. Each of these productor service providers is now working to gain the business of the consumerand the consumer is able to get the best deal on each of her purchaseswithout performing hours of product or service searches.

It is also possible that in this scenario product or service providermay per-purchase or queue up to access this consumer if the allottednumber of contacts for the product or service provider has been reachedfor a particular time frame.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary diagram of a consumer/product or serviceprovider matching environment in accordance with a possible embodimentof the disclosure. The consumer/product or service provider matchingenvironment 100 may include communications network 110, a plurality ofconsumers 120, a plurality of consumer/product or service providers 130,a consumer/product or service provider matching server 150, and aconsumer/product or service provider profile database 160.Communications network 110 may represent any communications network usedby consumers and product or service providers to communicate with otherentities, including the Internet, an intranet, mobile communication,satellite communications, etc.

The consumers 120 may represent a single person, an entity, a group ofpersons, or a group of entities, for example. In this manner, a group ofpersons and/or a group of entities may have greater bargaining powerwhen dealing with a particular or groups of particular product orservice providers 130. The product or service provider 130 may be anyprovider (e.g., store, manufacturer, distributor, company, corporation,entrepreneur, agency, service, etc.) of products and/or services thatmay be able to provide products or services to one or more consumers120. The product or service provider 130 may be local to the geographicarea of the consumer 120, in a different geographic area to the consumer120, or be a national or international product or service provider, forexample.

The consumer/product or service provider profile database 160 may becoupled to the consumer/product or service provider matching server 150and may store a plurality of profiles for consumers 120 and product orservice providers 130. The database 160 may be accessible and/orsearchable by the consumer/product or service provider matching server150, the consumers 120, and/or the product or service provider 130, forexample. The consumer/product or service provider matching server 150may be any device having a processor and a memory that is able tocommunicate to and from consumers 120 and product or service providers130, such as a server, a computer, or a processing device, for example.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary consumer/product orservice provider matching server 150 in accordance with a possibleembodiment of the disclosure. As shown, the exemplary consumer/productor service provider matching server 150 may include a bus 210, aprocessor 220, a memory 230, a read only memory (ROM) 240, aconsumer/product or service provider matching unit 250, input devices260, output devices 270, and a communication interface 280. Bus 210 maypermit communication among the components of the consumer/product orservice provider matching server 150.

Processor 220 may include at least one conventional processor ormicroprocessor that interprets and executes instructions. Memory 230 maybe a random access memory (RAM) or another type of dynamic storagedevice that stores information and instructions for execution by flightplanning processor 220. Memory 230 may also store temporary variables orother intermediate information used during execution of instructions bythe processor 220. ROM 240 may include a conventional ROM device oranother type of static storage device that stores static information andinstructions for the processor 220.

Input devices 260 may include one or more conventional mechanisms thatpermit a user to input information to the consumer/product or serviceprovider matching server 150, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, avoice recognition device, etc. Output devices 270 may include one ormore conventional mechanisms that output information to the user,including a display, a printer, one or more speakers, or a medium, suchas a memory, or a magnetic or optical disk and a corresponding diskdrive. Communication interface 280 may include any transceiver-likemechanism that enables the consumer/product or service provider matchingserver 150 to communicate via a network. For example, communicationinterface 280 may include a modem, or an Ethernet interface forcommunicating via a local area network (LAN). Alternatively,communication interface 280 may include other mechanisms forcommunicating with other devices and/or systems via wired, wireless oroptical connections. In some implementations of the consumer/product orservice provider matching server 150, communication interface 280 maynot be included in the exemplary consumer/product or service providermatching server 150 when the consumer/product or service providermatching process is implemented completely within the consumer/productor service provider matching environment 100.

The consumer/product or service provider matching server 150 may performsuch functions in response to the processor 220 by executing sequencesof instructions contained in a computer-readable medium, such as, forexample, the memory 230, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk. Suchinstructions may be read into the memory 230 from anothercomputer-readable medium, such as a separate storage device, or from aseparate device via communication interface 280.

The consumer/product or service provider matching server 150 illustratedin FIGS. 1-2 and the related discussion are intended to provide a brief,general description of a suitable computing environment in which thedisclosed embodiments may be implemented. Although not required, thedisclosed embodiments will be described, at least in part, in thegeneral context of computer-executable instructions, such as programmodules, being executed by the consumer/product or service providermatching server 150, such as a general purpose computer. Generally,program modules include routine programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciatethat other embodiments of the disclosed embodiments may be practiced innetwork computing environments with many types of computer systemconfigurations, including personal computers, hand-held devices,multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumerelectronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and thelike.

Embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environmentswhere tasks are performed by local and remote processing devices thatare linked (either by hardwired links, wireless links, or by acombination thereof) through a communications network. In a distributedcomputing environment, program modules may be located in both local andremote memory storage devices.

The operation of the consumer/product or service provider matching unit250 and consumer/product or service provider matching process will bedescribed below in relation to the diagrams shown in FIGS. 1-2.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary consumer/product or service providermatching process in accordance with a possible embodiment of thedisclosed embodiments. The process may begin at step 3100 and maycontinue to step 3200 where the consumer/product or service providermatching unit 250 may receive one or more profiles from one or moreproduct or service providers 130. The one or more product or serviceproviders' profiles may include the contact information (including name,address, telephone numbers, email, and website address, the type ofproduct supplied and/or services performed, geographic area covered,payment terms/account information, etc. for example). The consumer 120and/or the one or more product or service providers 130 may pay tosubmit profiles and the one or more consumers' profiles and the one ormore product or service providers' profiles may be searchable by eitherthe one or more consumers 120 or the one or more product or serviceproviders 130.

At step 3300, the consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250may receive one or more profiles from one or more consumers 120. Thecustomer's profile may include contact information (including name,address, telephone numbers, and email, and website address, history oftype of products or services needed, geographic area lived in orgeographic area of interest, payment terms/account information, etc. forexample). At step 3400, the consumer/product or service providermatching unit 250 may receive a consumer's subject matter request. Thesubject matter request may be a request for products or services, aninquiry concerning a geographic area, a subject matter search, etc. Theconsumer's profile and the consumer's subject matter request may bereceived by the consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250through a website, for example.

At step 3500, the consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250may match the consumer 120 with one or more products or serviceproviders 130 based on at least one of the consumer's profile andsubject matter request. At step 3600, the consumer/product or serviceprovider matching unit 250 may provide the consumer's contactinformation to the matched one or more products or service providers130. The consumer's contact information may contain a telephone number,an address, an email address, a hyperlink to the consumer's emailaddress, information inferred by the system, or additional consumerprofiles, for example. The consumer's profile may contain the contactinformation that is to be provided to the one or more product or serviceproviders 130, for example.

The one or more product or service provider 130 may be charged each timeit is provided access to one of the one or more consumer's profiles. Inaddition, a particular product or service provider 130 may be chargedeach time a consumer 120 accesses contact information contained inadvertising information of the one particular product or serviceprovider 130. The process may then go to step 3700 and end.

During the above process, the consumers 120 and the one or more productor service providers 130 may be connected to the consumer/product orservice provider matching unit 250 through the communication interface180 through the use of at least one of e-mail, a mobile communicationsnetwork, telephone, television, electronic communication device, and theinternet, for example.

Note that the consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250 mayrespond to the consumer's subject matter request, and theconsumer/product or service provider matching unit 250 may present theconsumer 120 with advertising information, for example.

The consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250 may update aconsumer's profile based on past purchases of products or services,subject matter requests, etc. for example. The consumer/product orservice provider matching unit 250 may send at least one of coupons anddiscounts to the consumer 120 based on at least one of the consumer'sprofile, the consumer's current or past product or services purchases,or the consumer's current or past subject matter requests, for example.

The consumer/product or service provider matching unit 250 may derive ageographic area of interest based on the consumer's subject matterrequest, network address, and/or the consumer's profile, for example.The consumer/product or service provider matches unit 250 may then matchthe consumer 120 with one or more products or service providers 130based on the consumer's profile, the subject matter request, and/or thederived geographic area.

FIG. 4 is a screen capture of an exemplary set of results 400 that occurwhen a real estate-based system performs scoring on a number of consumerprofiles (e.g., using the scoring factors and points of Table I above).As illustrated therein, a list of information about potential buyers maybe provided to a real estate sales service provider (e.g., a real estateagent) that has performed a search for potential buyers in the 21401 zipcode. A first ranked potential consumer 120 may be listed as looking forreal estate in Anne Arundel County, will need a mortgage of $100k to$150k, has less than $5k on hand, has a good credit score and has a goodincome level. The real estate agent can select the correspondinghyperlinks to claim access to the consumer profile or get additionaldetails about the profile. The entry may also indicate that the consumerprofile has been claimed by three real estate agents and may specify acorresponding maximum number of times that the profile can be claimed(e.g., four), after which the consumer profile can no longer be claimed.In an alternative embodiment, the number of times that a consumerprofile may be claimed may be industry or use-specific, such that theconsumer profile can be claimed a maximum number of times in a firstindustry (e.g., real estate broker), claimed a maximum number of timesin a second industry (e.g., mortgage broker), etc. Using the sameranking system, the second ranked potential consumer 120 through an n-thranked consumer 120 may also be also shown.

While the above discussion has been made with respect to an assumedsystem-wide page ranking, the system can also be supplemented with apage ranking system that can be specific to a product or serviceprovider. For example, a product or service provider 130 may not careabout whether a street address is provided, and may therefore wish tonot reduce a score based on those criteria. However, a product orservice provider 130 may want to more strongly rank potential buyers ina particular geographic area (e.g., zip code 20001 causes a 10 pt.increase in score or state HI causes a 10 pt. decrease in score).

Furthermore, the system may be configured to override certain scoringfactors. For example, a company that specializes in credit repair maywish to provide a higher score to “Poor credit” than “Excellent credit.”Thus, a product or service provider 130 may be able to better customizesearch results as part of their particular product or service providerprofile.

FIG. 5 is a screen capture of an exemplary interface 500 provided by areal estate-based system to enable users (e.g., agents, mortgage brokersand/or members of the general public) to see consumers that are activelylooking for real estate or mortgages in a particular region. Whenlooking for active leads, it can be beneficial for product and serviceproviders 130 to look for leads in a particular geographic region thatthe particular product or service provider 130 has experience in or inwhich one is selling, managing or buying real estate. Alternatively, thegeographic area may be selected by using a map instead of using text,drop downs, or an interface that is deemed most appropriate for theuser's needs.

An interface such as is shown in FIG. 5 may additionally be supplementedsuch that the most active product or service providers 130 receiveadvertising space on the websites on which they are purchasing access toconsumer profiles. The advertising space may be in the form of bannersor advertisements generally (that are or include hyperlinks toinformation regarding the product or service provider), or may bespecific to geographic regions in which the product or service provider130 is purchasing access to consumer profiles.

As discussed with respect to “delayed leads” above, some product orservice providers 130 may be willing to pay for more timely access toprofiles. Profiles can, therefore, be offered on a right of firstrefusal basis. For example, a first service provider 130 that bids thehighest amount may be the first service provider 130 to receive noticeof all new or updated consumer profiles that match a specified criteria.The first service provider 130 may then have a set period of time inwhich to either claim the consumer profile, “pass” on the consumerprofile (thereby not exercising the right of first refusal) or “hold”the consumer profile (either at no cost or at a smaller cost thanclaiming the profile).

After the first product or service provider 130 has passed on a consumerprofile (or after a hold has been released or expired), the right toaccess the consumer profile information would then pass to a secondproduct or service provider 130 (or to a second tier of product orservice providers 130). The process could then repeat for as many levelsas exist within the system. The hierarchy can be based on bids,historical buying patterns, profiles and/or geographic information, forexample. The offering of the consumer profiles can be by email, postingto a website, text message, etc. such that product or service providers130 are notified of when new consumer profiles are available and by whenthey must respond

Embodiments within the scope of the present disclosed embodiments mayalso include computer-readable media for carrying or havingcomputer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon. Suchcomputer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessedby a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, andnot limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM,EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage orother magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used tocarry or store desired program code means in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions or data structures. When information istransferred or provided over a network or another communicationsconnection (either hardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to acomputer, the computer properly views the connection as acomputer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed acomputer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also beincluded within the scope of the computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that performs particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the disclosed embodiments are part ofthe scope of the disclosed embodiments. For example, the principles ofthe disclosed embodiments may be applied to each individual user whereeach user may individually deploy such a system. This enables each userto utilize the benefits of the disclosed embodiments even if any one ofthe large number of possible applications do not need the functionalitydescribed herein. In other words, there may be multiple instances of thedisclosed system each processing the content in various possible ways.It does not necessarily need to be one system used by all end users.Accordingly, the appended claims and their legal equivalents should onlydefine the disclosed embodiments, rather than any specific examplesgiven.

I claim:
 1. A method performed by a consumer/product or service provider matching server for providing product or service providers with an ability to search for consumers having requirements in a particular subject matter area, comprising: establishing one or more profiles from one or more product or service providers, wherein the established product or service provider profiles are one of received and created; establishing one or more profiles from one or more consumers, wherein the established consumers profiles are one of received and created; receiving a request from one of a product provider and a service provider relating to the particular subject matter area; searching for consumers having requirements in the particular subject matter area in a geographic area of interest, the geographic area of interest being derived based on at least one of the consumer's subject matter request, network address, and the consumer's profile; providing the one of a product provider and service provider with at least one consumers' information not including contact information based on at least one of the consumer's profile, the subject matter request, and the derived geographic area; and providing the one of a product provider and a service provider with the at least one consumers' contact information based on payment of a fee for access to the consumer's contact information, the fee depending on general and specific criteria estimating the market value of the consumer's contact information and whether or not the one of a product provider and a service provider is permitted exclusive access to the consumer's contact information.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumers and the one or more product or service providers are connected through the consumer/product or service provider matching server that performs the method through the use of at least one of e-mail, a mobile communications network, telephone, television, electronic communication device, and the internet.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the consumer and the one or more product or service providers pay to submit profiles.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more consumers' profiles and the one or more product or service providers' profiles are stored in a database.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer represents one of an individual, an entity, one or more individuals and one or more entities.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more consumers' profiles and the one or more product or service providers' profiles are searchable by at least one of the one or more consumers and the one or more product or service providers.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer/product or service provider matching server is one of a server, a computer, and a processing device.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more product or service provider is charged each time it is provided access to one of the one or more consumer's contact information.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein in response to the consumer's subject matter request, the consumer is presented with advertising information.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein one particular product or service provider of the one or more product or service providers is charged each time a consumer accesses contact information contained in advertising information of the one particular product or service provider.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: storing the one or more consumers' profiles and the one or more product or service providers profiles in a memory.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer's profile is updated based on at least one of past purchases of products or services and subject matter requests.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more consumers' profiles and the consumer's subject matter request are received through a website.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer's contact information contains at least one of a telephone number, an address, an email address, a hyperlink to the consumer's email address, information inferred by the system, and additional consumer profiles.
 15. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer's profile contains the contact information that is to be provided to the one or more product or service providers.
 16. The method of claim 1, further comprising: sending at least one of coupons and discounts to the consumer based on at least one of the consumer's profile, the consumer's current or past product or services purchases, and the consumer's current or past subject matter requests.
 17. The method of claim 1, further comprising: deriving a geographic area of interest based on at least one of the consumer's subject matter request, network address, and the consumer's profile, wherein the consumer is matched with one or more products or service providers based on at least one of the consumer's profile, the subject matter request, and the derived geographic area. 